Exit poll: priorities for the next Congress

Poll workers across the country will be counting millions more ballots throughout the night, but exit polls shed light on the new direction voters want the 112th Congress to take.

Overall, voters came down firmly against expanded government: 56 percent told exit pollsters that the government is doing too may things better left to business and individuals;38 percent say the government should do more to solve problems.

Thirty-seven percent say that spending to create jobs should be the highest priority for the Congress, which will have a GOP-controlled House and Democratic Senate. A similar number, 39 percent, say the top priority should be reducing the budget deficit. Eighteen percent cite cutting taxes as the highest priority.

On the subject of the Bush-era tax cuts, four in 10 support continuing them for all, 37 percent say they want them to continue only for families earning less than $250,000 per year, and fewer, 15 percent, say they want all Bush-era tax cuts to expire.

Forty-eight percent support canceling the changes that the Obama administration and Congress made to the health care system. Thirty-one percent say they want the new health care law expanded, and just 16 percent say they want to leave the laws as is.

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